With the advent of the computer age, computer and software users have grown accustomed to user-friendly software applications that help them write, calculate, organize, prepare presentations, send and receive electronic mail, make music, and the like. Mode word processing applications, for example, allow users to create and edit a variety of useful documents. Modem desktop publishing applications, for another example, allow users to create a variety of useful documents and presentations such as newspapers, newsletters, brochures, advertisement layouts, stationery, and the like.
Many software applications, such as word processing applications and desktop publishing applications, allow users to select a document template from a collection of pre-prepared templates for use in preparing a document such as a brochure, flyer, advertisement sheet, sign, business card, and a variety of other helpful and useful documents. Many such applications allow users to customize documents by applying user-selected color to portions of the document. For example, a user may select a color scheme containing the colors green and blue, and a border around a particular document may be colored blue and a background may be colored green.
Prior systems often display a collection of templates where each template includes one or more fields defined for colorization, if desired. Typically, these fields are colored with one or more default colors to allow a user to visualize the collection of templates with added colorization. When the user selects one of the templates for use, the selected template is then displayed or opened in the editing application and the collection of templates is dismissed. The user may then select a desired color scheme for application to the selected template in place of the default color scheme. Unfortunately, if a user decides that a different template is preferable, the user must dismiss the selected and displayed template, return to the displayed collection of templates, select a different template for opening in the application, and apply the desired color scheme to the second selected template. Such a back-and-forth selection/colorization process is cumbersome and limits the user's ability to fully appreciate and evaluate the breadth of available templates.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for providing colorized previews of available document templates where a user can preview the application of a selected color scheme to a number of available document templates prior to selection of a particular document template for use. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.